I had a conversation with Tim Slekar on his program, “Busted Pencils,” about the Rightwing attack on teaching history honestly and accurately.
We had fun, and you might enjoy listening:
#BustEDPencils Pod.
It’s not an attack on history. It’s an attack on #democracy.
Guest: Diane Ravitch.
Listen here: https://civicmedia.us/podcast/teaching-history-in-hostile-times
Diane Ravitch's blog 
People become very mentally and emotionally invested in believing the version of history that accords with their world view. Contradictory evidence creates cognitive dissonance which is too painful to confront, so they find ways to ignore and dismiss it. They don’t even realize what they’re doing. They believe their own views to be correct and other views to be wrong, so why would you teach something that’s wrong? The question is about how do we get people past their cognitive dissonance to look at all available evidence in order to be more open to the truth?
What you describe is a common phenomenon, but you miss the point I was making. How do we persuade legislators that they should not pass laws banning views they don’t agree with?
How do we persuade legislators to do anything to support the people instead of the moneyed? The same way we always have, with disruption of the money: strikes, boycotts, sit ins… They only listen when they’re scared shi— witless. #Red4Ed!
“The question is about how do we get people past their cognitive dissonance to look at all available evidence in order to be more open to the truth?”
That is a good question. Any ideas of how to do it, especially with people who are absolutely certain that their sources of information are “fair and unbiased”, no matter how much evidence there is that they are being played by people whose motives are to create a world that is exactly the opposite of what many of the useful idiots who believe them say they want? Of course, if those folks I called “useful idiots” actually prefer the world that those who they believe hope to create, then I am wrong, and they aren’t useful idiots at all,but merely complicit folks who are acting in their own self-interest because they share the world view and ethical and moral compass of their “sources.”
Assuming you’re talking to me (indirectly, of course, as usual), I’ll wait while you go find me a single post of mine where I have ever claimed that my sources are “unbiased”. Or are you once again putting words in my mouth?
One of my most consistent points the entire ten plus years I’ve been on this blog is that there is no such thing as lack of bias or objectivity. Which is why, for instance, standardized tests can never be “objective”.
It’s also why news is never “true” or “objective”. Which, in turn, is why one can never know what’s going on without reading many different news sources from many different angles – liberal, conservative, independent, western, non-western, etc. One must take into account what the agenda of each news source is and how they are financed, their historical track record, their historical willingness to correct their errors as prominently as they make them, and the evidence presented, for instance, from named vs. anonymous sources, pictorial or video evidence, statements from officials, signed documents, etc.
For instance, Sy Hersh has an impeccable record, from My Lai through Abu Ghraib, of reporting what turned out to be true in the face of opposition from government and media. The New York Times, on the other hand, has refused to publish multiple true stories embarrassing to the empire from Vietnam through the Iran Contra Scandal through Iraq (which they in fact, blatantly lied about). Both Hersh’s story and the NYT version rely on unnamed witnesses, but Hersh’s story fits with the known facts – that only a state actor, working through it’s military, had the capability of blowing up the Nordstream pipelines. The NYT is trying to tell us it was five guys on a yacht not even big enough to carry compression chambers. While I won’t guarantee that Hersh is telling the truth, his story at least passes the smell test, whereas anyone who believes the NYT story does apparently suffers from long COVID. You have my sympathy.
There is a difference between acknowledging that a theory is plausible – as Sy Hersh did – and doing what you do and refusing to believe any theory that doesn’t support your own world view that Putin and Trump are normal leaders who just look bad because they are victimized by evil Democrats. You hate Dems and love Putin, so Putin can do no wrong in Ukraine (he’s fighting Nazis you say) and you completely reject that there was anything wrong with Trump extorting Zelensky to go on a media tour to publicly smear Biden – something that was stopped ONLY because a whistleblower testified UNDER OATH about it and had his career destroyed by Trump (which also didn’t bother you one bit).
Unlike you, I don’t have any problem acknowledging that Sy Hersh could be right that the government of NORWAY was instrumental in dropping a sonar to blow up explosives as part of a CIA plot. Norway and the other evil democratic socialist Scandinavian regimes like Denmark and Sweden that Hersch says were informed of parts of the plot are ALSO not admitting to it publicly. Are you surprised? Does that support the Putin and right wing Republican view that even democratic socialism is evil and only authoritarianism led by a strong man is an acceptable form of government?
I’m surprised you aren’t pleased with this plot to make Europe find cleaner sources of energy. Are you a fan of pipelines now?
Unlike your rejection of the reality of Trump’s wrongdoing during the impeachment hearings — which you repeatedly called a “nothing burger” because having people testify publicly under oath is not enough to convince you, I am more than willing to acknowledge that Hersch could be right about Norway and Biden being in cahoots here but unwilling to admit it. There are certainly a lot more foreign policy objectives (and climate change objectives) in the move. There were no objectives in Trump extorting Zelensky except for political gain in Trump using lies to take down a political rival. And people testified UNDER OATH about that, yet you rejected it. I would say that when it comes to rejecting reality, only one of us limits themselves to rejecting any reality that doesn’t fit their worldview. Putin fighting Nazis is believable to you, but Trump illegally extorting Zelensky to push a false narrative on a US media tour for him is not believable.
The other difference between us is that I am perfectly willing to say that if Sy Hersch is right and the US and Norway decided to sabotage Russia’s pipeline after Putin invaded Ukraine, I support and understand the objectives (Hersch goes to great lengths to describe the diplomatic attempts, and Biden’s unwillingness to just green light this action on a whim, and Hersch highlights that social democrat countries were involved) You won’t just come out and say that you support Trump extorting Ukraine for political gain because you supported and understood the objectives. Your concern for civilians being bombed and babies being killed seems to be about whether Putin (or one of his allies like Assad) is responsible.
There is nothing wrong with getting information from Sy Hersch and weighing it. There IS something wrong with rejecting all information that doesn’t support your world view. The Republicans no longer care about truth. I do. But I don’t think you are interested in any truth that doesn’t fit your world view. You don’t admit that you support bad things if they help you politically. That’s what fox news and Republicans do because they have no moral core. They would rather have you believe the false reality that there was no violent insurrection than to admit that they were fine with violent insurrection because they hoped it would give them the outcome they wanted. Being truthful is not part of the propaganda playbook, which is why it is not possible to have discussions with you. Like Fox News, you pretend your motives are just to seek out truth, when they are just to promote anything you can find to demonize Democrats.
That’s an awful lot of words not to answer my question. Please show me where I have ever said that my sources are “unbiased” or retract your statement.
I wrote a lot of words to give you a chance to be as open minded as I am. You aren’t. You ARE biased. I can acknowledge that Sy Hirsch might be right. Not because what he is saying makes Biden look good or bad, but because his reasoning is sound, even if he doesn’t actually have anyone except an anonymous source confirming it.
Yet you reject what Trump did even though people under oath said it was true. You reject all the evil Putin does or what’s worse, you EXCUSE it by claiming it was to fight Nazis or that “Biden made him do it”. We have nothing to discuss because we are in perfect agreement – we both agree that you believe you have an amazing ability to discern what is true among “biased” sources, and it just so happens that everything that fits your view that Putin and Trump are victims of evil Dems and biased media just happens to be 100% accurate, in your esteemed judgement.
I mean, how can I ever argue with that? With your brilliant ability, you could find the “true” source to support your view every time. You remind me of Trump voters who cite Tucker Carlson’s video which convinces them the media has lied to them about there being any violence at the Capitol. They will acknowledge Fox is also “biased”, but when Fox presents a “truth” like Tucker Carlson did, they – like you – have that very special ability to discern that this time their source is “true”. And like you, they deny that their complete faith in any news source reporting news that fits their world view has anything to do with the fact that the news being reported fits their world view. It’s just their unique ability to know when something is absolutely, positively, 100% true.
I’m not here to argue with you, as that would be pointless. I just wanted you to admit you can’t find any post of mine where I’ve ever said that my sources are unbiased. I will take your lack of response on that point as an admission that you can’t find such a post and you were indeed putting words in my mouth, but you don’t have the integrity to admit it.
Good day. If you wish the last word, you may have it.
People become very emotionally invested in blaming the Dems for caring too much about trans people. Thus the Republicans try to pass anti-trans laws in Congress knowing that Democrat haters on the left will not criticize them but will try to change the subject to blaming the Dems for caring too much about identity politics.
@42:36: “When people are talking about freedom?! Man, if you’re not a public education advocate, you can’t be for freedom!”
Too many people have become brainwashed by right wing media. They believe what they see on Fox News, and they read a steady diet of right wing misinformation on-line. Some of them live in a right wing bubble of lies and propaganda.
Personally, I don’t think they’re brainwashed. I think the candidates and media you (and I) decry merely articulate what they desperately want to believe, what makes them superior to the “other” — the hollow fellowship of shared skin color. I’ve only watched a half of one of those hoarder shows, but it seems to me that the cult is the political equivalent of extreme hoarders. The surround themselves with memories and experiences of which they can’t let go, even as it isolates them further from society and reality.
Especially when too many of those legislators could not pass a ninth grade history test, with any interpretation of the historical evidence.
Exactly right. None of the legislators is a historian. Some have no college degree. Why should they decide ?
dianeravitch
Agreed
Word Press needs a like button for a laptop.
Great spot, again, Diane! Always a pleasure to hear you speak!
Haven’t listened yet, but here’s my take:
The DeSantis-Cristofascist wing doesn’t want kids to learn that the country was founded by white men whose success was dependent on the exploitation of black labor and the theft of land from natives, often accompanied by murder.
They don’t want the raping, beating, and stolen livelihoods to be taught. They don’t want the Trail of Tears and numerous broken treaties taught either. Know why?
They know just how much is owed in reparations, and they know who owes it. And the people who should be paying the reparations own the politicians, the media, and the narrative. And that is why we are where we are.
Saying Gay
Excellent points.
I know of few people who can speak more clearly. As I listened, I realized an obvious thing we’ve kind of overlooked. We all were taught sanitized history through high school. We’ve all spent lifetimes coming to terms with that, knowing we always have to keep learning. And since we all had sanitized history and broke free in various ways from its misconceptions — or at the very least, are aware that we need to do so. Because of that, we are more aware of the threats, because we want our kids to have access to better sources of history than we did.
I had a horrendous American history class in my junior year in Catholic school. All these years later, I can’t really recall any of my teachers or classes that year, but I remember that class vividly. I had a racist, conservative Catholic who, among many similar things, said Crispus Attucks was killed in the Boston Massacre was “probably some drunk” in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were numerous asides like that throughout the year. Had I only absorbed the what he taught, I’d likely be in the cult today. But he motivated me to care about education, all I wanted to do in my twenties was to be the teacher he wasn’t.
My U.S. history teacher in Texas was an Irish Catholic woman who thought that Senator Joseph McCarthy was the greatest living American.
So true. I can recall freshman year of college my idealized notion of American history was shattered when I read that many of the founding fathers were deeply in debt to Great Britain, and they had an economic motive to sever ties with the British. https://medium.com/the-passion-of-christopher-pierznik-books-rhymes/the-founding-fathers-were-terrible-at-personal-finance-8cc9a9532412
Mine came earlier, when I was at first day of middle school in Alabama in the early 70s, the first non-DoD or -military dependent school I had attended. Coincidentally, also the first day they integrated about five black students into the school. One of the kids asked if I was “one of the new niggers.” That kind of radicalized me early.
Greg,
I grew up in Houston. Public schools were segregated. The textbooks were sanitized. At that time, we barely had gotten access to the three big networks. Of course, no internet. Meaning, no alternate sources of history. The textbooks were notable for what they did not say. College in Mass. was a huge improvement. But it took years of reading to overcome the deficits of my schooling.
We each had a Great Awakening of sorts after high school!
That is the definition of woke. Many would prefer to sleep at a tremendous cost to themselves.
One of the fairy tails we were taught served a primary function of preserving the wealth of the landed gentry. By among other things dividing workers by race since 1677. Although unlike some American history books that had been used in many schools; I am not calling chattel slaves workers, except in general terms. They did not sell their labor . It works almost as well today as Unions are rejected along racial lines in Southern States.
YAY for this PODCAST! Thank you.
Thank you for being the voice of reason. All this is, indeed, about the first amendment. Your suggestion that there needs to be a court case reminds me of the Scopes Trial. It all started in a drug store in Dayton, Tennessee. Several local folks talked John Thomas Scopes into teaching a kid evolution ideas from a state adopted textbook. He had to teach the kid personally, because nobody taught that section of the textbook. Then they sued him for violating the new law against teaching evolution, which everyone thought was ridiculous. Next thing you know, Darrow and Bryan were involved and it was a circus. The sarcastic Mencken made his appearance, and fundamentalism had its cause celeb. For two generations after that, fundamentalism was discredited and on the wane. Then came Falwell and the moral majority, Gingrich and the bulldog right. Now we are right there again.
Maybe we do need a court case.
The study of history is not a science. The study of history is a creative art. I received an MA in History, not an MS. Historians read, write, and discuss what they’ve read and written. Technology has expanded the means by which a recorded story of humanity may be shared. New souces of evidence have also expnded the number of groups and individuals deemed worthy of study by historians. All new perspectives regarding past events may be considered revisionist, as interest in the past reflects current concerns about now and the future. Trying to legislate and define what is accurate history is not much different than trying to legislate how to write a novel, short story, or a poem. Students may be barred from many legitimate sources of historical information, but historians aren’t going to stop studying, reading, writing, and discussing their craft!
The best line in the Abbott Elementary episode this evening was when the charter salesman was summarily labeled a “jackass.”
haaaa!
David Hume was a great Scottish philosopher and no slouch as a thinker. He wrote in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,
“Nothing . . . [seems] more unbounded than is the thought of man, which not only escapes all human power and authority, but is not even restrained within the limits of nature in reality, . . . While the body is confined to one planet, along which it creeps with pain and difficulty, the thought can in an instant transport us into the most distant regions of the universe. . . . What never was seen, or heard of, may yet be conceived; nor is anything beyond the power of thought, except what implies an absolute contradiction.”
and though Hume is to be praised for his intellectual accomplishments, these PALE IN COMPARISON TO THOSE OF RON DESANTIS, for while Hume’s mind ranged the universe, it balked at breaching the CITADEL OF ABSOLUTE CONTRADICTION.
However, HIS DOES NOT HOLD BACK RON!!!! He entitled his book about how he wants to curtail the freedoms of those who don’t think exactly like him The Courage to Be Free. He stands in front of podiums with slogans on them touting Freedom (these vary), and announces that he is going to preserve freedom by removing books from libraries, telling teachers what topics they can and cannot teach, taking over universities and micromanaging their curricula (after installing his lackeys to run them), attacking tenure and academic freedom, going to war with corporations that suggest that they might disagree with him in the slightest on any social issue, firing people who dare to disagree with him or sending police to invade their homes, and so on.
Florida. Where brains go to shrivel up in the sun and democracy goes to die.
All of which suggests slogans for Ron Ron’s 2024 campaign:
Ron DeSantis: The Gov from Above!
Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength!
Let Freedumb(TM) Reign!
Don’t forget punishing beneficial industries that criticize his ideas. At least publicly, and so long as it gets him notoriety.
Andy Ogles, a freshman congressman from Tennessee (R) ticks all of the boxes for a school choice politician. He was director of the Tennessee AFP (Koch). Allegedly, his credentials don’t match his successive resumes nor, his orally delivered claims of education and experience. He’s been compared to Santos. Various media report Ogles collected almost $25,000, at GoFundMe in 2014, to build a garden for the burial of stillborn children. The plan included a life size Jesus. When one donor asked for the return of his money, noting the garden hadn’t been built, the donor received a refund.
The Wikipedia account of Ogles is a good read.
If all of the people were removed, who we have reason to suspect are grifters or liars, would there be anyone remaining in the school choice campaigns?
Ogles is a member of Congress due to Republicans gerrymandering longtime congressman Jim Cooper out of a job in Nashville
Possibly very good news- South Carolina’s Clyburn has endorsed public school supporter, Brandon Johnson, for Chicago mayor.
That is good news, Linda.
Vallas was a disaster in every school district he led.
On another front, Nancy Pelosi endorsed Adam Schiff for Senate in California.
“High five to the design intern who clearly hates you.” The quote is from twitter about the tweet of Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Schools which has been seen by 1 million people. The story is at Huffpo.